


Of Poncy Sheets and Pumpkin Soup

by pillarboxred



Series: A Happier You Than Yesterday [2]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxiety, Awkward first dates, M/M, Relationship Negotiation, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 11:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3727600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillarboxred/pseuds/pillarboxred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s going to go watch a <i>sunset</i> with someone and eat and laugh and talk and probably, hopefully, end up snogging them, <i>him</i>, on one of their doorsteps, and it’s so <i>lovely</i> an idea he wants to squirm.</p><p>It’s also fucking terrifying is what it is.</p><p> </p><p>Or, Louis wakes up at Nick's and they sort themselves out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Poncy Sheets and Pumpkin Soup

Louis is going to die. 

His head is absolutely _pounding_ , and he’s afraid to move it lest it pop like a balloon, and fuck, is that _birdsong_?

Why the fuck is there birdsong?

They don’t have any birds.

There aren’t even any trees near their shitty student flat.

Louis slits his eyes open, first one and then the other, and looks around as best he can without moving his head.

He is most definitely not in the shitty student flat he shares with Harry and Liam.

For one thing, the mattress he’s on isn’t lumpy, it doesn’t smell like Harry’s shampoo or like Liam’s cologne, and what the hell is that on the opposite wall?

Looks like...neon.

Bright blue neon.

Too fucking bright.

 _“Enjoy” my arse_ , he thinks, slowly sitting up and rubbing his hands over his face. He looks around to see if he can locate his mobile, but it’s scarpered off somewhere else in Nick Grimshaw’s flat.

And Louis knows it’s Nick Grimshaw’s flat because he’d recognise that neon sign anywhere.

He’d been there when Harry’d bought it for him, all excited because he’d finally found something for Nick’s birthday last summer and in a charity shop no less. Louis had helped him lug it back to theirs, but he’d drawn the line at helping put it up at Nick’s.

 _Carpentry is for peasants Harold_ , he’d said, and then he’d got distracted trying to talk Liam out of a pout because _carpentry and plaid shirts have exactly nothing to do with each other, Leeyum, that’s lumberjacks and either way, that top’s stunning on you so put that bottom lip back where it belongs._

And Liam had, and Harry hadn’t got Nick’s sign crooked, so, really, everything worked out in the end.

Except Louis’s head fucking _hurts_.

He is going to have words with that bottle of Cab Sauv he’d had last night.

As soon as he gets in, he’s going to find that bottle, probably pitched in the recycling knowing Harry, and he and it are going to have a very long talk.

A very long talk about being better than Merlot, evil, witchy Merlot, and not giving people very nasty headaches the next morning.

But first he has to get home.

He gets out of Nick’s admittedly very comfortable bed and looks for his shoes. He finds them at last neatly lined up on the floor beside the bed and slips them on, grateful that they’re the only piece of clothing that’d been taken off last night.

It’s one thing to wake up hungover in Nick Grimshaw’s bed. 

It’s quite another to do so absolutely starkers.

He goes down a short corridor that empties out into a living room with a ridiculously high ceiling and even more ridiculously bright light streaming in through the windows. He hears a small noise to his right, and looking over, that’s where he finds Nick, sat at a low white table and looking back up at him, eyes wide and almost...hopeful.

Louis just kind of blinks at him, feeling frozen, unable to move, a million different thoughts whirring through his head.

_What’s with your face?_

_Why are you looking at me like that?_

_Why is your flat like it is?_

_How did I get to your flat?_

_Seriously, what’s with your face?_

"What’s with your face?" Louis finally asks.

“My face?" Nick says, brow furrowed in evident confusion. 

“Yes your face. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like that," Louis says, flapping a hand around in the general direction of Nick’s very pretty face.

He has decided whilst he’s been stood here that yes, Nick’s face is just as pretty in the morning light as he fuzzily remembers it being last night.

Last night.

_Oh._

Is he…?

Fuck, he is.

That is most definitely a blush that’s creeping up from his throat, turning his cheeks and the tips of his ears warm and pink.

He claps his hands over his face, thinking, stupidly, that maybe Nick won’t notice.

“You shouldn’t look at me like that,” he says, speaking mostly into his palms.

“Why not?”

“It’s unnerving.”

“Okay,” Nick says, and Louis lowers his hands a little, peeking over his fingertips.

“Okay?”

“I promise I won’t look at you however I was just looking at you.”

“Good,” Louis says, lowering his hands completely, only to bring one right back up and rub at his forehead.

Fucking headache.

“Head hurt?”

Louis nods, keeps rubbing.

“I’ve got some ibuprofen I think,” Nick says, rising out of his chair before Louis can protest and heading through the corridor toward what’s probably the bathroom. Louis watches as he wraps himself around a door frame and does…something that results in an “aha!” followed by Nick coming back down the corridor with a triumphant look on his face and a small white bottle in his hand.

“It’s expired,” he says, studying the label. “But I think it’s still alright.”

Louis doesn’t particularly care if it’s expired or not, as long as it works, and he tells Nick so.

“Sit then,” Nick says, passing the bottle over to Louis and indicating the table. “I’ll get your water.”

And Louis sits, because he is tired and his head hurts and his ears are still burning and pink, and whilst he remembers some very _nice_ things from the previous evening, there’s still a very large gap of things he _doesn’t_ remember, and he’d quite like to get that sorted before he goes home to Harry’s smirk and Liam’s concern-face.

Nick comes back with Louis’s water in _an actual glass oh my god you have got to be kidding me_ and takes a seat in the chair opposite.

“Are you posh then?” Louis asks, shaking out three of the tablets for good measure and knocking them back all at once with the water.

“Posh?”

Nick’s got his brow furrowed again, and Louis decides that he quite likes the look of it on him. Not the earnest confusion part, because he gets enough of that with Liam, but the eyebrows part. 

Nick’s got very nice eyebrows.

“All this,” Louis says, waving a hand at Nick’s impossibly airy living room with actual furniture, well, okay an oversize sofa, a coffee table, and a television, which are still nicer than anything he’s got, and then indicating the actual glass of water on the table in front of him. “It’s so... _poncy_.”

“Poncy?” Nick says, with an indignant squawk. “S’not poncy. It’s just my things.”

“Your poncy things,” Louis returns, emptying his glass and pushing it over towards Nick.

“Want more?”

Louis doesn’t especially, but he knows he should, so all he says is “ _Please_.”

And Nick gets up and gets him more water, and Louis decides that he also quite likes this whole being-looked-after thing, if only because it’s currently delaying the inevitable.

“So,” Nick says, after a moment has passed and chiefly to his hands. They are very nice hands, Louis thinks. “About last night…”

 _Shit_.

So much for delaying the inevitable.

“What about it?” Louis asks, setting down his glass in front of him and keeping a hand on it to steady himself.

“I was just wondering if you remembered it,” Nick says, studying his hands a little longer before finally looking up at Louis.

That flush from before is back in full force, heating up his throat and his face and his ears, but Louis keeps his hands where they are, and swallows, hard.

“I remember...parts of it,” he says, a little thickly, voice low and dull.

“Parts of it.”

Nick’s frowning again.

Louis would like him not to do that. Ever.

Because he very explicitly remembers kissing Nick last night so he’d _stop_ frowning, and Nick _had_ stopped frowning, but here he is doing it again, and it’s beginning to piss Louis off.

“Yes, parts,” Louis says, and if he were standing, he’d stamp his foot for emphasis. “I remember the kissing you so you’d stop being sad part, and I remember telling Liam we were going home together, but I don’t remember what happened after that. And here you are _frowning_ again and being all put out, and I’d really like to know if I did something after we got here _somehow_ so I can not do it again in the future and you’ll quit looking like I kept promising you a puppy and then took it away before you even got to have it.”

He sits back and folds his arms, glaring at the table.

His face and throat have cooled, but his traitorous ears are still burning.

There’s a long moment of silence, and then Nick, the bastard, laughs.

Actually _laughs._

“We got in,” he says, a little breathlessly, once he’s done, “and you said you were tired, so you got in my bed and stole my duvet and all my pillows and were asleep in, like, five minutes or summat.”

That...does sound like him.

He hates being cold, and lately it’s been abysmally so.

Lousy Smarch weather.

“So that was you then?” he asks, looking up from the table. Nick just looks back at him, confused, so he adds, “With my shoes. You didn’t say anything about me taking off my shoes.”

A smile spreads across Nick’s face, and that, that’s much better.

“Yeah,” he says, ducking his head a little. “Couldn’t have you getting muck in my poncy sheets.”

“On your poncy mattress,” Louis says, feeling a grin stretch his cheeks.

“In my poncy flat.”

“I’m glad you’ve seen the light Nicholas.”

“I won’t doubt you again Louis.”

And _oh_ , does Louis like how Nick says his name.

He thinks he’d quite like to hear him say it in _other_ situations.

And if he could quit blushing this century that’d be nice, thanks.

“See that you don’t,” Louis says, relaxing into a slouch with his arms still crossed. It makes his knees bump into Nick’s under the table, but Nick doesn’t move away, so Louis doesn’t either.

It’s nice. 

Warm.

“So how come you live in a posh flat?” Louis eventually asks. “If you’re a student like us and not some geezer pretending like in the films.”

“I’m only a year older than you,” Nick points out, not that Louis didn’t know that already, thanks Harold.

“Still doesn’t answer the question.”

“Is that what we’re doing now? Asking questions?”

Louis shrugs. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s just-” Nick begins, and then cuts himself off. He fixes Louis with a look that he can’t make out, before his face clears and he shakes his head. It’s a nice head, Louis thinks, taking notice of Nick’s thick, dark hair as it’s flung about. He’d really like to get his hands in it.

“Nevermind me,” Nick says at last. “I’m being an idiot. My mum refused to let me live in student housing when I moved down, so she and my dad got me this place.”

“You’re from up North then?”

Nick nods and leans forward a little in his seat, resting his chin on his right hand. 

“I am too,” Louis says, and it’s nice that, knowing they’ve actually got something besides Harry in common.

“What brought you down South?”

“Better weather,” Louis says, unfolding his arms and stretching them out as far as he can across the table, frowning when he sees it’s chiefly just his forearms that he’s got resting there. He really is absurdly short, especially next to Nick. “Well, usually, anyway. Today’s looking like an anomaly it’s so bright out.”

Nick turns his head, looking at the windows with their steady stream of sunlight pouring in.

“I was thinking about going to the reservoir today,” he says. “Have a walk, watch the water.”

“By yourself?” Every time Louis has ever seen him, Nick’s been surrounded by people, but then again, he _was_ by himself all last night…

“Was thinking about convincing Harry, have him pack a lunch and we’d go,” Nick says, and _oh_. Right.

Louis had got so _comfortable_ at this little white table in this big, silent flat that it’d never occurred to him that Nick might have other plans. Other plans with other people. And instead of pushing to be included like he’d do on any other day, today it just feels like he’s in the way.

“Suppose I ought to go then,” he says, moving to get out of his chair. “I can tell Harry when I see him if you like. About going to the reservoir.”

And he’s up and looking around for his mobile, _it’s got to be here somewhere_ , when he hears Nick say, “I’d rather go with you.”

Louis stops looking then and turns back to face Nick. Nick, who’s got _his_ long arms down and stretched across the table, and who’s looking at Louis so hopefully that it almost hurts a little.

And Louis wonders at that, thinks _what’s been done to you?_ _It can’t have only been me._

But he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask. It’s too early and too bright out to be prying.

So instead he says, “I’ve got to have a bath first. Won’t be seen in public with you smelling like smoke and in last night’s wrinkled clothes.”

Thankfully, Nick smiles at that, wide and bright and real, and says, “Alright then. Go have your bath, and we’ll meet there at say, half five? Sun should still be out then.”

 _And if we’re there long enough, we’ll get to watch it set_ , Louis thinks but doesn’t say, tamping down on the giddy feeling that’s bubbling up in his chest and threatening to spill out.

“Half five is good,” he says. “Want me to bring something? Like food?”

“You cook?”

“Simple things,” Louis says with a shrug. “Lots of little sisters,” he adds, when Nick just looks at him blankly. “I meant more like bribing Harry to make something, like you’d said earlier, just we’d be the ones eating it.”

“Probably not very fair to Harry though,” Nick says, which is true, but.

“He’s still not invited,” Louis says, adding on hastily, “this time. He can come with us some other time, but not today.”

Nick looks surprised at first, but then he nods and says, “Alright. How about we just each bring something then? Like a snack or summat?”

“Alright.” Louis thinks he’s got crisps or something at home, but it isn’t like he can’t pop out to the shops right quick. He’s got time, and it’s a special occasion and all that.

He finds his mobile and his keys, safely stowed away in his coat that’s hanging on _an actual coat rack, Jesus, not even Harry’s got a coat rack and he has a million and one coats._ He shrugs it on, and, giving Nick a little wave and a probably dopey smile, he runs down two flights of stairs to catch a bus home.

~*~

Home is a lot darker than Nick’s flat.

A lot smaller too.

He lets himself in and is wholly not surprised to find Liam stood there, arms crossed and a frown on his face, obviously having been interrupted pacing.

“Worried about something?” Louis asks, walking into their kitchen and setting down his keys and his mobile.

“Wasn’t worried,” Liam says, following him and leaning up against the doorjamb. He’s still got his arms crossed, but the frown’s got more puppy-dog-like than upset. 

“Don’t ever lie, Liam,” Louis says, rummaging through their cupboards to see what snacks he can filch for later. “You’re rubbish at it.”

“Not lying,” Liam says, petulantly. “You said you were at Nick’s right?”

“I did,” Louis says, pulling out an opened box of chocolate digestives and examining the date on the side. “And I was. Is this all we’ve got to eat that doesn’t have to be cooked?” 

“Think there might be some scotch eggs left in the fridge,” Liam says, looking at the box and not at Louis. “Just need to reheat them.”

“Scotch eggs,” Louis says, considering it. “D'you think Nick likes scotch eggs?"

Liam shrugs. “Dunno. Probably have to ask Harry."

"Think I will," Louis says, setting the box of digestives down on the counter. “Where is Harold?"

"In his room," Liam says. “So, you and Nick..."

"Yes Liam, me and Nick," Louis says, squeezing past him and heading into the living room, where he shrugs off his coat and tosses it on the sofa before heading in the direction of Harry’s closed door.

“So you worked it out then?" Liam asks, close on his heels.

“I'd say so if we're going on a date later," Louis says, stopping short once he realises _what_ he’s just said.

_Is it a date?_

He looks back at Liam, but he’s no help, gaping just as much as Louis is.

They hadn’t said it was a date, but Louis _had_ said he was going to clean up first, and they’re probably going to look at a sunset together, which is kinda date-like, and…

“I can hear you thinking from here,” comes a voice only slightly slower than normal from sleep, probably, and Louis looks over to see Harry emerging from his room.

Harry, not unusually, _is_ starkers, and out of the corner of his eye, Louis notices Liam turn a very bright shade of red and abruptly start studying his feet, which, _interesting_ , and Louis will be filing that information away for later, but first he has a maybe, maybe not date to panic about.

“Does Nick like scotch eggs?” he asks, and, instead of waiting for an answer, adds, “And is it a date if I get all cleaned up and go eat them at the reservoir with him at probably sunset?”

“He likes the vegan ones,” Harry says, swiping a pair of Louis’s tracksuit bottoms off the floor and pulling them on. Also not unusually they stop quite a few centimetres above his ankles, and they’re probably dirty if they’ve been lying around like they have, but nobody says anything, opting instead to trail behind Harry back into the kitchen.

“Are the ones we have vegan?” 

“You're going to the reservoir, right?" Harry asks, instead of answering.

Louis nods, but Harry’s still got his back to him and doesn't see as he's digging into one of the cupboards Louis hadn’t checked, the one where Harry keeps his "projects." He pulls out a jar of something that looks very much like baby food and studies the label affixed to it.

“Probably be cold when the sun starts going down," he says, turning the jar around in his hands.

"And windy on account of the lake," Liam pipes in, adding on a _“what?"_ when Louis turns and gawks at him.

“Exactly," Harry says, giving Liam a pleased look. "Which is why you need pumpkin ginger soup," he adds, holding out the jar to Louis, who takes it and studies the label himself.

"You made this?" he asks, testing the weight of it in his hands and examining the lid. "How'd you get it to seal?"

"Made it in my Tuesday evening class. They had a...thing you could put it in that'd seal it. A big...pot kinda thing with...gauges."

“A pressure cooker,” Liam puts in, and, while that sounds about right...

“How’d you know what a pressure cooker is?” Louis asks, narrowing his eyes and studying Liam very carefully.

“I looked it up,” Liam says, glancing between Louis and Harry, and Louis would have something to say about that too, but he will save it for later as well, because he’s got much more pressing issues such as:

“So what do I do with it?”

He tries handing the jar back over to Harry, who’s very intently watching Liam very intently watch him back, and it takes probably an entire minute that Louis doesn’t have before he snaps out of it and takes his soup from Louis’s hands.

Harry sets the jar on the counter and reaches down to get out a pan. “Just need to heat it,” he says, setting the pan down on the hob. “Simmer it a while and pop it in Mr Bento before you go. What time’s your date?”

“Half five,” Louis says automatically, looking at the clock above the cooker and noticing that it’s just gone eleven, so okay, maybe he’s got more time than he thought, and he can fucking _breathe._

And it feels so incredibly good to gust out that sigh of relief.

Even if his heart’s still pounding, pulsing in his ears.

He’s going on a fucking _date_.

He can feel sweat start to prick at his palms.

He’s going to go watch a _sunset_ with someone and eat and laugh and talk and probably, hopefully, end up snogging them, _him_ , on one of their doorsteps, and it’s so _lovely_ an idea he wants to squirm.

It’s also fucking terrifying is what it is.

“Hey,” Harry says, coming up and taking Louis’s hands, squeezing them. “It’s alright. It’s just Nick. He won’t be mean. Not to you.”

“How did you-”

“Your face did that thing it does when you’re panicky,” Harry says, swiping his thumbs back and forth across Louis’s, and Louis didn’t even know his face did a _thing._

And so he asks, “What kind of thing?”

Harry opens his mouth to answer, but it’s Liam who says, “You get really pale and poorly-looking. Like you’re about to be ill.”

“How do you know I’m not actually about to be ill?”

“Because if you were really ill, you’d let everyone know about it,” Harry says, and when this is all over, Louis is going to be having a talk with them about double-teaming him.

Probably after he has a talk with that treacherous Cab Sauv bottle.

“Is it really that noticeable?” he asks. It comes out sounding tiny and weak, and Louis _hates_ that, but he’s got to know.

“Just to us I think,” Harry says, and Louis looks over at Liam, who nods.

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s so _warm_ , that one little word. Liam is always so very warm. “It isn’t like you’re walking around with a giant flashing ‘Louis is panicking’ sign when your face gets like that.” 

“D’you think Nick knows?”

“Dunno,” Liam says, whilst at the same time Harry says, “Doubt it.”

They blink at each other for a moment, and then Harry turns his attention back to Louis, saying, “I don’t think Nick knows how you...work, but he’s not going to be unkind about it once he does.”

Perhaps Louis needs to revise his opinion on just how much Harry knows about him.

“He wouldn’t,” Liam puts in. “And if he did, he’d have to answer to us.” He even manages to look a little fierce as he’s saying it, and Louis has to crack a smile at that.

He really has the best friends in the world.

Which is why he’s able to pull his hands out of Harry’s grip and hustle both him and Liam into a hug, saying, “Let’s not get too soppy now lads. I’ve got a date to prepare for.”

~*~ 

Louis is bricking it.

Absolutely fucking _bricking_ it.

He’d been fine all afternoon, allowing Harry and Liam to talk him into a FIFA tournament whilst the soup simmered, filling their flat with something almost like autumn. He’d even allowed Harry to beat him once, soundly too, and had declined the offer of a rematch in order to finally, actually get himself ready.

He doesn’t look too bad, he thinks, cradling Harry’s Mr Bento full of soup close, having forgotten his gloves. He’s got on his good trousers, the ones he has to hop into sometimes but hug his legs nicely, and the button-up is probably too thin for the weather and the wind, _holy shit the wind_ , but it pairs well with the coat Harry’d insisted he wear, going into more detail about the cut and what all that did for his bum than Louis had really wanted to hear.

And now he’s here, at the reservoir, shivering that shapely arse off and wishing he could check the time to see how obnoxiously early he’d arrived and how much longer he’s got to wait, but that involves taking a hand _off_ Mr Bento and digging into his coat for his mobile.

The only way he’s taking a hand off Mr Bento is if someone shows up to hold it immediately after.

Preferably a certain very tall someone with great hair.

“You look frozen through,” comes a voice from behind him, and Louis isn’t ashamed to admit that he kind of whirls around to _find_ that certain very tall someone stood there with his great hair being whipped around by the wind and a bag dangling from one arm.

“Didn’t think there’d be a gale,” Nick says, taking a step forward and closing the distance between them.

Louis swallows hard, tries to remember how to get his frozen lips to work.

“Liam,” he says, and it comes out scratchy, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Liam said it’d be windy. On account of the lake. And Harry said I should bring soup ‘cause it’d be cold too, so I did.” 

He holds out Mr Bento, almost like it’s a peace offering, and Nick brings his hands up like he’s going to take it, but instead he places them over Louis’s cold ones.

Louis’s breath hitches.

Because, alright, they’re a little clammy, but still, they’re Nick’s and they’re _warm._

"Were you waiting long?" Nick asks, and Louis honestly has no idea, so he just shrugs the question off.

“Didn’t want to get lost,” he says. “Haven’t been here before.”

“You drove?”

Louis shakes his head. “Renault’s been acting dodgy, so I caught the red line instead. Why, did you drive in?”

Nick nods in the affirmative, looking a little sheepish and biting his lip. 

It really is _stupidly_ attractive.

“We can go sit in it if you want,” he says, already moving his hands away, which, _no_ , and making toward his pockets like he’s going for his keys. “Still might be warm in there and we won’t get blown away.”

And it _is_ tempting, but Louis has committed to an entire _idea_ about this whole...thing, whatever it may or may not be, and he’s sure it doesn’t involve being stuffed in Nick’s car eating soup.

Not very possibly romantic, that.

“Let’s just find a picnic table or something,” he says, stepping back and looking around. “Got to be one around here somewhere.” They’re in a park-like kind of area, after all, and Louis keeps searching, taking in the trees and the lake and the nearby walkway with its lone jogger like he hasn’t just spent probably half an hour or more looking at them already.

“They’re closer to the water,” Nick says, indicating with one long arm a smattering of picnic tables that are indeed close by the lake.

“Come here often do you?” Louis asks, stepping in that direction.

“Used to,” Nick says, falling into step with him. “When I first moved down. It’s a good spot to sit and think”

“No offence or anything but you don’t exactly strike me as the type of person to need a spot to sit and think.”

It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it, as most things he says tend to be, and Louis sneaks a sideways glance at Nick to see if he’s maybe possibly, hopefully not, bothered, but it’s hard to tell since he’s chiefly studying the ground in front of them.

And there’s a short but also terribly long moment of silence that follows before, a little dully but not bitterly, "Hence the used to.”

Louis breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Touché.”

The rest of the short walk is done quietly, at least until Louis, his mind having nattered on about it the entire time, asks, "So what sort of stuff did you sit and think about?"

Nick's answer is short, cryptic.

“Mistakes."

And that hits him right square in the chest, an unpleasant electric sensation zinging around and stealing his breath away. _Again._

Louis is really fucking tired of not being able to breathe.

He is also fairly certain he’s one of those mistakes.

And despite them sort of having talked it out this morning, he can’t help but remember what he’d done before, _that other time_ , about how he’d kissed Nick and forgot about it, how hurt Nick had been and how sad, and as much as he wishes he could just somehow paint all over it so it never existed, he knows he _can’t._

So he just busies himself arranging Mr Bento on the table they’re stood at. Not that it needs arranging, since there's nothing else beside it and he hasn’t even opened it yet, but still, it’s something to do with his ridiculous jittery hands.

He hates this.

Everything is quiet, awkward. 

All on account of his big _stupid_ mouth.

And he’s about to suggest that they call this whole thing off, forget it ever happened and go back to some sort of truce type of deal, when he sees Nick set his bag down, which really shouldn’t be anything in and of itself, but he’s got it so _close_ to Mr Bento that Louis allows himself to feel an idiotic little spark of hope.

“I know we said snacks,” Nick says, folding back the handles and stepping away. It puts him right next to Louis, their sleeves brushing, and it’s all Louis can do not to jump out of his skin. “But all I had was some cheese and an avocado and those biscuits my mum always sends, so I hope that’s...hey, are you alright?”

Louis inhales sharply.

Fuck.

Nick’s _noticed_.

He remembers the conversation he’d had with Liam and Harry in the kitchen earlier, that thing they’d said his face does.

Shitting fucking fuck, he needs air.

His face is on _fire_ , and his lungs _are not working._

“Hey,” he hears Nick say again, voice impossibly far away, and he feels a hand on his shoulder.

He starts.

The grip on his shoulder loosens and falls away, and he waits, counts to up to five and back down, before he thinks he’s brave enough to look at Nick.

Nick’s looking back at him, all concern, but he’s not, he isn’t _laughing_ , and Louis thinks, feels that maybe, just maybe, there’s air seeping into his lungs after all.

“Oh god I am so sorry,” he says, rubbing his hands over his face and wiping away, hopefully surreptitiously, the sweat that’s somehow managed to gather on his forehead. “I’m not usually… I don’t…” His voice trails off, which is just as well, since he hasn’t the faintest clue what he was even going to say, and his hands go into his hair, ostensibly to rearrange his fringe, but really just to pull at it a little and let the tiny pinpricks of pain ground him better.

“We could just eat. Start with that.”

Louis freezes, his hands hanging somewhere around his temples.

He blinks at Nick, who blinks back, but he isn’t being _pitying_ or anything like that, and okay, Louis _can_ eat. Eating is absolutely something he can do and not make a complete disaster of.

He hopes, anyway.

“Yeah alright,” he says, and he immediately gets to work disassembling Mr Bento, setting out the bowls that have, mercifully, managed to keep their contents from spilling everywhere. He reaches into his coat pocket next and pulls out the spoons he’d wrapped up in a cloth and stored there, placing the bundle neatly amongst the bowls.

“What type of soup is it?” Nick asks, reaching into his own bag and pulling out several small containers and a box of Carr’s water biscuits, which, 

Louis can’t help but snicker.

It feels kinda good.

Better.

“Why does your mum send you poncy biscuits?” 

Nick looks at him, shocked, before turning his attention back to the box in his hand and considering it.

“I...really have no idea,” he says, smiling wide at Louis and setting the box down.

“Buying them in the South not good enough for her baby is it?” 

Oh _god_ , that is so much better.

Nick laughs, and his mouth really is such a delight.

His face is a delight.

“I think so,” he says. “I am the youngest after all.”

Louis didn’t know that.

“And she let you leave?”

“Think she was glad to see me go,” Nick says. “Said I moped too much and I needed some sun.” He then stops short, eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. 

Louis knows that look.

Knows it very well.

It’s the look of someone who thinks he’s said too much.

And, he can do this.

Banter, and keep it light.

Keep it from going anywhere it doesn’t need to go.

Been there plenty enough already, thanks.

“Well obviously it didn’t work,” he says, lightly, giving Nick a saucy little grin before dusting off the bench and taking a seat. “You’re about as white as paper, love.”

And shit.

So much for keeping it light, for not going places best not gone to.

 _Love_.

Nevermind that Louis throws that word around like confetti; nevermind that he’s heard Nick do it too.

It’s somehow different, here at this picnic table on a lonely little stretch of parkland, just them and the wind and the meal spread out and waiting.

And if Nick is white as paper, then Louis is red.

Red red red.

Gerard Way’s Danger Days hair red.

He buries his face in his palms.

_Why the fuck is this so hard?_

_Because it matters_ , says a voice in his head that sounds a lot like Harry, and great, now he’s having conversations with himself.

He’s gonna be fucking certifiable at this rate.

And then, very slowly, his hands are being pulled away from his face, Nick’s grip light but firm on his wrists.

“You really need to stop doing that.”

Louis, of course, of fucking course, can barely breathe, but he manages to gust out a “doing what?”

“Covering up your face,” Nick says, still holding on to Louis’s wrists and moving his thumbs up and down the delicate undersides. It sends little shivers up his arms with each pass. “It’s a good face, like, _really_ good, and you don’t want to be covering it up and hiding it all the time.”

Louis feels his heart skip a beat.

“Really good?"

His voice is small and squeaky, and he doesn’t even _care._

Nick likes his face.

_His face._

And Louis knows it’s a stupid thing to get all excited about. He’s aware he’s got a good face. He’s quite proud of his face, actually, and he’s not even ashamed to admit to the vanity.

But hearing Nick say so…

It sends something warm curling through him.

“Yeah,” Nick says, a bit breathlessly and nodding his head a little. He’s still got a grip on Louis’s wrists, but his thumbs have stopped moving. 

Louis is sure he’s not imagining that Nick’s palms have suddenly got hot and a bit damp.

And _then_ …

Then Nick’s lips are on his, soft, oh so soft, and there is an electric _thrill_ that shoots up from the centre of his chest, pinging off the roof of his mouth, causing his lips to part and a sigh to spill out.

And he’s shaking, fucking _trembling_ , as Nick deepens the kiss, his hands sliding from Louis’s wrists to cup his face, his fingers tentative and feather-light on Louis’s jaw, the thin skin of his neck.

Louis drops his hands and slowly, cautiously brings them to rest on Nick’s forearms, getting a light, uncertain hold of Nick’s coat between his fingers and thumb.

He’s never done this before.

He’s never wanted so badly.

It should be terrifying, and it is and yet it isn’t.

It’s just... _good._

Right now he will take good and soft and slow.

And that smile Nick’s got on his face as he pulls away.

“Alright?” he asks.

Louis nods, feels a smile stretch his now slightly less fiery cheeks.

He is.

“Pumpkin ginger,” he says, adding on after he sees Nick’s still very nice eyebrows lift, “you asked what kind of soup it is. It’s pumpkin ginger. Harry made it.”

“Bribed him after all did you?” Nick asks, getting into a less awkward position beside Louis on the bench.

“More like he insisted I take it, with help from Liam,” Louis says, removing the lids from the bowls and sliding one of them very carefully over to Nick.

“I think something’s going on with those two,” Nick says, centring his bowl in front of him and reaching for the silverware bundle, unfolding the cloth napkin with those lovely long fingers of his and getting a spoon.

“You do?” 

Nick nods, blowing on his soup. Louis resists an urge to poke him in the cheek.

“They _were_ acting weird when I got in,” he says instead, getting his own spoon and stirring his soup with it. “Liam was all blushy and shy-like, and they were finishing each other’s thoughts. It was proper strange.” 

“Maybe they’re having a little date right now, just the two of them,” Nick says, before pausing abruptly with his spoon halfway to his mouth and looking out of the corner of his eye at Louis.

Louis swallows his own mouthful, puts a fist to his lips and clears his throat.

“Yeah,” he says, once he’s moved his hand. “What with me out being on my own. Date. Thing.”

Nick smiles at him, visibly relieved, and they finish their soup in near silence, just the sound of the wind rustling the leaves on the trees and the lapping of the water on the shore nearby.

And, hang on a tic.

“I’ve just realised something.”

“What’s that?” Nick asks, fumbling in his bag and bringing out a napkin to wipe at his mouth with.

Not that Louis was tracking the movement or anything.

“We’re facing the wrong way.”

Nick sets his napkin down and turns around to look behind him before looking back at Louis. As soon as their eyes meet, they both dissolve into laughter.

Because it’s true.

They’re both sat at the same side of the picnic table, backs to the lake and facing a narrow stretch of grass bordering the car park. And it is a nice car park, well-kept, but still…

“Oh my god we are a pair,” Nick says, burying his face in his hand and then running it up and through his hair. A lock of it flops down into his eyes, and…

Control.

Actually, no.

Stifling an honest-to-god giggle, because _seriously who the fuck giggles_ , Louis reaches over and smoothes Nick’s hair back out of his face, taking in how soft it feels on his fingers.

“We’re _amazing_ ,” he says, sitting back and folding his hands in his lap.

“Liam and Harry aren’t ever going to know are they?” Nick asks, small smile lingering around his lips.

“I don’t think they especially need to know. Just that we smashed it.”

“Other side then?”

“Yep.”

And they bolt up and run over to the bench on the other side of the table like they’re schoolchildren, almost sliding into the seat and ending up nearly on top of each other, arms and thighs pressed close together.

It is so _warm_.

They take in the water and the shadows that grow longer and longer as the sun begins to sink, and they talk.

At first it’s simple things, like about how much they’d both loved Busted, how they’d had the same David Beckham poster (Louis’s on the ceiling above his bed, Nick’s on the back of his bedroom door with both of them having the underwear adverts hidden in their mattresses), how Liam is starting to resemble Becks a little so they should probably give him no end of shit about it because they both agree that he’s a bit too earnest for his own good and deserves to be rattled around some.

And Louis flips his hand over, not at all subtle as he nudges Nick until he takes it in his own, and they talk some more as the sky turns from blue to orange, pink, and purple.

About how they both love being in the South but miss the North sometimes.

About their siblings and what it’s like being the youngest child as opposed to being the eldest.

About how much Louis loves his English degree, even though he’s got no idea what he’s going to do with it.

About how Nick enjoys what he does at the campus radio station, even if he’s only got one listener, and that’s Harry.

Which isn’t entirely true, since some nights, usually the low, empty ones, the sound of Nick’s voice is enough to cheer Louis up, listening to him natter on about indie music and about how much he hates rats a lot more preferable than the silence inside and the darkness outside.

Louis isn’t quite brave enough to admit that yet though.

So instead he makes Nick a promise that if Nick plays him a song, then Louis might actually listen to his little show.

Nick laughs, squeezes his hand, swears that he will. First thing tomorrow night, even.

“Good,” Louis says, tentatively squeezing Nick’s hand back, and then they’re quiet.

But it’s a nice kind of quiet.

At least until Nick says, "I'm glad you came today."

Louis is too, but…

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

Louis can feel Nick stiffen where they’re pressed together.

“No, I just-” Nick says, and Louis thinks he can hear him swallow before he adds, “I just considered that it might...it might be a possibility. That you’d change your mind or summat.”

“Why’d you think I’d change my mind?”

Nick shrugs. “People do sometimes.”

“Well I’m not most people, am I?”

“Probably not,” Nick says, and when Louis looks over, he’s got a smile on his face. A little one, but it’s there. “No, definitely not. Most people don’t go around kissing other people to make them feel better.”

“It was only you,” Louis says, pouting a bit for effect. “And it worked didn’t it?”

The smile slips off his face, but Nick nods. “But that’s not the only reason you did it.” He's got that look again, that terribly hopeful one, and Louis wants to shake him until his secrets spill out.

Or at least until he can come up with the name of the arsehat who’d hurt him.

Because Louis is _very_ sure that it’s not just been him.

And he has decided, right here in this very instant, that fuck what _he_ did before, he’s fixing it, he’s done dwelling on it.

 _He’s_ going to be so good to Nick that his head’ll spin.

And if he gets to kiss him more and then _more_ , well, that’s just a bonus, isn’t it?

“You got me,” he says, pasting on his best guilty look and holding his hands up, wiggling his fingers. He laughs when Nick’s face clears, and he grabs on to Louis, locking their hands together. “Totally had ulterior motives, I did.”

“You could have just _said_ something,” Nick says, trying for grumpy and failing miserably at it.

“Could have done,” Louis agrees, lowering their joined hands into his lap. “But then, if I’d come up to you just one day out of the blue and been all ‘Hi Nicholas, I actually quite like your hair and your voice and your face, let’s snog a lot’ you’d have thought I was a right idiot.”

“Wouldn’t have,” Nick says, and Louis notices that he’s turned a lovely shade of pink, which he doesn’t think is entirely to do with the very last of the sunlight hitting the side of his face.

“On account of my having a nice face too.”

Nick nods.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’d have been all ‘since we’ve both got nice faces, we should put our nice faces on each other’s face.’ Would have said we should do it for science or summat."

“Please don’t tell me you’ve actually said that to someone.”

“Just said it to you didn’t I?”

“I don’t count,” Louis says, and he uses all of his strength and the grip he’s got on Nick’s hands to pull him forward and, well, put their nice faces on each other before Nick can say something else equally ridiculous. It takes some adjusting, looping Nick’s long arms around his neck and avoiding a knee to the stomach as Nick turns in his seat, but after that it’s, well, _nice_.

And it’s proper dark when they finally come up for air. It’s not bitterly cold, which also is nice, but the wind is still gusting away, and that, that’s not helping much.

“Probably ought to be going soon,” Louis says, pulling back a little and dropping his hand from Nick’s waist to what he hopes is his leg. “Before Liam fills our flat with kittens.”

He hears rather than sees Nick laugh.

“Yeah,” Nick says, and then a bit more seriously he adds, “I wanted to tell you something. Before we go. There’s just...something I want you to know.”

“Alright.” Louis doesn’t exactly feel like his blood’s turned to ice water, but it is a near thing. 

“I don’t even-” Nick starts and abruptly breaks off. It’s still too dark to see anything, but if Louis had to guess, he’d say Nick’s got a hand in his hair. Which, unfair.

So Louis gropes around a little, bumping into Nick’s shoulder but eventually locating said hand and bringing it back down to his lap.

“I can’t see you Nicholas,” he reminds him. “So if you’re going to tell me something, this is probably the best time, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nick echoes. Bastard’s probably biting his lip. Which, also unfair. “It’s just not an easy thing to tell someone, and it’s probably too soon to bring it up, but it’s important to me, and I…”

“Nicholas,” Louis says cutting him off. And without waiting for a response he adds, “If you don’t tell me whatever it is you have to tell me, I am leaving right now, and you will have to tell me some other time. To my face. When it’s light out. Possibly with other people nearby.”

“Well when you put it like that,” Nick says, after a lengthy pause. “I just...I just wanted you to know I don’t do secrets.”

“Secrets?”

“Secret relationships. I had one before, and...it ended...badly.”

Oh.

Well then.

That...might explain some things.

“What happened? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, obviously, but if you did...want to, you can.”

“No,” Nick says, clearing his throat. “Probably should. It’s just that Harry doesn’t even know, so…”

“I won’t tell him.”

Nick is quiet, and Louis really wishes he could see his face.

Wishes Nick could see _his_.

“I mean, unless it was with Harry, which I don’t think it was, but if he broke your heart somehow and made you like...this, then I will go have words with him. Already planning to have words with him anyway about him and Liam, but I can work it in. Look proper menacing too.”

He can hear Nick chuckle, and that’s better.

“No,” Nick says. “Definitely not Harry. It was...a guy back in college. He, um, he’d take me ‘round to see films and we’d snog after and do...other stuff, but it was always hush-hush you know?”

Louis, in fact, does not know, but he makes a noise of assent so Nick will keep talking.

“And I thought it was alright. Not ideal, but alright. Until we got caught.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And I was so relieved at first because I didn’t have to hide it anymore, but then he turned on me, said it was all my doing, that I’d _made_ him do...things, and his friends, they’d been the ones to find us out, started calling me all manner of lovely names and they…”

Oh, no.

Louis can feel a tremor develop in his hands he’s so angry. 

“Did they _hurt_ you?”

“No, nothing like that. Just pushed me around a little, really. But I got away and ran home, and they mostly ignored me the next day in classes outside of a lot of dirty looks and some more name-calling so in the end I was alright. Just, haven’t been keen on secret relationships since.”

And, that’s understandable. Not that Louis was planning on keeping this secret, he’s rubbish at it and he doesn’t see the point, but he gets it.

Also.

“You forgot something.”

“I did?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d I forget?”

“Liam knows. About us.”

“Right.”

“So does Harry.”

“Okay.”

“You can tell everyone that we’re snogging on the radio tomorrow if you like. I’ll threaten to end you afterward, but I won’t mind.”

“Really?”

“Sure. So long as you play me my song.”

“I can do that.”

“A nice song.”

“I already know which one I’m gonna play.”

“Is it a nice one?”

“You’ll love it. I promise.”

“I’m looking forward to it then,” Louis says, standing up. “Now let’s go before Liam _and_ Harry both have kittens, and I have no place to live.”

“D’you need a ride?”

Louis pulls out his phone and checks the time, sees that he’s got hours before the buses stop running, but he figures he might as well be honest, so he says, “Not especially, but I’d like one.” 

“Alright then,” Nick says, and Louis thinks he catches a flicker of a smile before the light on his mobile goes out.

They collect their things by mobile phone light and then head toward Nick’s car, an older MG TF that looks blue under the lone light in this section of the car park.

“Not the kind of car I expected you to have Nicholas," Louis says, getting in and fastening his seat belt.

“Was my older brother's," Nick says, fastening his own seat belt and fitting a key in the ignition. “Andy. I'd always liked it when I was younger, so he let me have it when he got a new one."

“Awfully generous of him.”

“He’s alright. Also don’t think he wanted to bother trying to sell it.”

“Worked out for you then.”

“Suppose it did. Had some good memories in this car.”

“Not with-”

“ _No_ ,” Nick says, effectively ending that line of conversation. “More like the time I skived off my lectures and went to the beach. Just me and a bottle of rum. I imagined I was a pirate.”

“Find buried treasure did you?”

“Not as such. Although I did find one of those gold dollar coins. Kept telling Harry it was a doubloon.”

“I remember that. He believed you, you know?”

"He did not."

"He did! Came in all excited, saying you'd found a fortune."

"He was joking!"

"That’s not a Harry joke though. His jokes are rubbish. All those puns and such."

"I like puns," Nick says, and Louis actually doesn't mind them so much himself, but he’s not admitting it.

Won’t give Harry the satisfaction quite yet.

”So why'd you go sit on the beach and pretend to be a pirate? Sounds proper weird to be honest."

Louis can’t see anything, but he can imagine Nick's shrug as he says, "Thought it'd be a laugh, something I could say I did."

And that's actually not a bad reason, although...

"Why didn't you take anyone with you? We'd have come along if you'd asked."

"Would you have done? Really?"

"'Course we would have," Louis is saying when Nick cuts him off.

“I mean, would _you_?" he asks, and that, that is probably a fair question.

But still...

"Don't think I've ever done anything like that," Louis says. “So yeah, definitely I'd go. Although I think it'd be better if you went at night, got a big bonfire going."

"Don't know if I trust you and fire."

"Well that’s why we'd bring Liam with us, wouldn't we? In case we need someone who actually knows what they're doing."

"We'd have to bring Harry too," Nick says. “Wouldn’t be fair to leave him behind."

"He can bring the snacks then."

"He does do a wicked pumpkin soup."

"I'm not eating soup at a bonfire Nicholas."

"Just at reservoirs."

Louis laughs.

"You make it sound like we're gonna do a proper tour of reservoirs. Us and our trusty Mr Bento full of soup."

"We could," Nick says, and there’s something about the way he says those two words, all soft and hopeful, that makes it seem like the best idea in the world.

“Get us a list up then," Louis says, settling back in his seat.

They’re so close to Louis’s flat now. It’s actually rather disappointing.

“I can do even better than that," Nick says. “I can do us a _spreadsheet_."

"Pulling out all the stops now, aren’t you Nicholas?"

"Gotta be impressive. Show off them mad Excel skills.”

“Mad Excel skills.”

“Yup.”

“Say that to all the lads?”

Louis catches Nick shooting a glance his way under the light from a passing streetlamp.

“Just the very fit ones,” he says, small smile on his face.

Louis smiles back at him, glad his blush isn’t obvious and turns his attention back to his window, only to find that they’ve arrived.

Nick parks the MG near the stairs that lead up to Louis’s flat and turns off the ignition. There’s the sound of little pings and hisses as the car cools and settles, and they’re terribly loud in the silence that’s descended.

“I had a lot of fun today,” Nick says eventually, mostly to his hands where they're still resting on the wheel.

“Me too,” Louis says, and that’s when Nick’s head pops up.

“Really?” he says, all bright-eyed before he clears his throat and adds a bit more calmly, “I mean, good. That’s...good. I’m glad you had a good time.”

Louis can’t help but roll his eyes.

“Walk me to the door will you?”

Nick gapes at him.

“C’mon Nicholas let’s go,” Louis says, grabbing hold of the door handle. “We’re gonna do this proper you and me, which means you’re walking me to my door.”

“I...I am!” Nick says, and it’s almost comical how fast he opens his door and gets out, rushing around the front of the car to open Louis’s door for him.

Louis blinks up at him, wholly unprepared for that amount of speed, but he takes Nick’s hand when he offers it, tentatively holding it during the entire walk up the stairs and to the door of Louis’s flat. And it’s not until they’re stood in front of the door that Louis’s nerves _really_ come roaring back.

 _This is it_ , he thinks. _All day it’s been leading up to this._

He remembers what he’d been thinking of earlier, of kissing Nick on a doorstep, his or Nick’s, it didn’t matter which one, and despite having kissed him not even an hour ago, the idea of doing it _here_ and _now_ is giving Louis the shivers.

“So, um…” he hears Nick say, after a very long moment of silence has passed. “My show. It starts at ten.”

“Ten?” Louis asks. He looks over at Nick then, sees him nod.

“Yeah,” he says, and Louis thinks he looks almost as far away as Louis feels. “So make sure you listen so you can hear your song. I’m gonna play it, maybe not first off but probably within a few minutes of starting.”

“My song,” Louis begins, confused before it all comes rushing back to him, and he’s got to laugh.

“Yes, my song!” he says, probably loud enough that Harry and Liam can hear him inside. That is, if they’re not both of them stood at the peephole in the door, which, knowing them they probably are. “My song that I’m going to love.”

“I did promise,” Nick says, biting his lip and looking between Louis’s eyes and his mouth. “You’ll ring me and let me know what you think of it?”

Louis nods, takes a step closer to Nick.

“Got my number?” Nick asks, and now he’s definitely just looking at Louis’s mouth.

“Yeah, got it off Harry a long time ago,” Louis says, tilting his face up and closing his eyes.

And then Nick’s pressing their lips together, and it is so very gentle and _nice_. But still, despite that, Louis feels like his heart’s about to explode out of his chest, and he’s sure that when they break apart he’s a very fetching shade of red.

“Think I heard a shout just now,” Nick says, taking a step back and gesturing at the door.

“You probably did,” Louis says, shaking his head so his fringe will settle a bit over his burning forehead and putting a hand on the door knob. “Liam, if I had to guess.”

“Did sound like him,” Nick says, as he’s stuffing his hands into his coat pockets.

“I know,” Louis says. “Sometimes he’s worse than me mum.”

“Better go in before he grounds you then.”

Louis snorts. “I’d like to see him try,” he says, but he does step aside so Nick can pass.

“‘Til tomorrow then,” Nick says, and Louis nods.

“Yeah,” he says, not even trying to suppress the small smile that’s dancing on his lips. 

“Tomorrow.”

He waits until Nick’s halfway down the stairs before pushing the door open as fast and as wide as possible, hitting...somebody that soon turns out to be Liam, who stumbles back into somebody else who proves to be Harry.

“Well lads,” he says, grinning wide at both of them. “I’m back.”

~*~

The next night, after flipping off Harry and his smirk and Liam and his knowing smile, Louis shuts himself in his room and turns on Nick’s show.

He’s immediately greeted with the sound of Nick nattering on about “a very pretty, so pretty, unbelievably pretty” boy he’d taken up with over the weekend, and no, Louis _isn’t_ blushing his fool head off. His ears are most definitely _not_ burning, and his cheeks _aren’t_ stretched in a grin that’s threatening to split his face in half.

And then he hears the sound of waves that signals the opening of “Sea Creatures,” and that’s when he loses it.

Absolutely fucking loses it.

He claps a hand over his mouth and laughs until his ears and his stomach hurt.

When he can finally breathe again, he gets out his mobile and sends Nick a text:

_You’re such a fuckstick_

followed immediately, lest Nick get the wrong idea, by 

_But I suppose you’re my fuckstick._

Nick sends him back a string of five different fish emojis and a wave emoji.

_What time does your show end?_

_Midnight._

_Come over after?_

_If you want me to._

_I do._

_Kk_

Louis sets his mobile down on his desk and leans back in his chair, draping his arms over the sides. He’s got over an hour and a half to make himself presentable, but instead he stays where he is, listening to Nick’s voice in the dark, so alive and happy, and he’s so pleased that _he_ might have had a hand in that.

He must drift off, because the next thing he knows, his lamp’s on, and there’s a hand on his shoulder. He starts but relaxes right away once he sees it’s Nick.

“Sorry,” Nick says in a near whisper. “Harry let me in.”

“S’alright,” Louis says, sitting up straight and rubbing his eyes. “Time is it?”

“Half twelve. Came over soon as I finished.”

“You have dinner?”

Nick shakes his head.

“There’s some pumpkin soup left if you want some.”

Nick smiles at him, wide and bright despite the shadows under his eyes.

“Big fan of pumpkin soup.”

Louis grins back at him.

“Let’s get some in you then.”


End file.
